Neurodegenerative disorders leading to dementia, such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), are chronic, long term processes resulting from an accumulation of various lesions and insults. Among the latter are oxidative stress, inflammation, hormonal deficits, abnormal cholesterol metabolism and excitotoxic stress. Such defects result in synaptic function deficits, neuronal death and dementia. The hallmark pathologies of neurodegenerative diseases (such as AD, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Parkinson's disease (PD)) are brain lesions containing aberrantly phosphorylated cytoskeletal proteins, the accumulation of which leads to cell death. In particular, the extracellular aggregation of amyloid peptides and the intracellular hyperphosphorylation of tau and neurofilament proteins at specific epitopes are pathological hallmarks of AD, ALS and Parkinson's disease PD. Often neurodegeneration begins long before any symptoms are manifested. As such, diagnosis of a neurodegenerative disease tends to occur after the patient has already suffered the majority of the neural damage. Moreover, few therapies are available for the treatment of most neurodegenerative diseases even once the disease has been identified.